July 2008

This month we have a visual theme for you. We've expanded our Caedium tutorial tips with lesser known, but useful, Caedium visual features. For those eagerly awaiting news on our OpenFOAM add-on, we can report that development is progressing well.

Internal Fluid Flow WithTransparency

Visual Finish
The visual look (finish) of geometry in Caedium is controlled by a Finish tool. This tip describes how to control the transparency of a geometry face.

Visual Facets Control
Visual facets in Caedium are used to represent geometry in a View Window. In order to see geometry on a screen it has to be broken down into simple elements (lines for edges and triangles for faces). This tip describes the facet controls that Caedium provides.

Visualization Preferences
Caedium preferences can control how imported or new geometry is displayed initially. This tip describes how to set new geometry faces to be shaded rather than transparent (the default setting).

Blog

Below are teasers for our latest blog posts. The titles are links to the full posts.

Virtually Real Motor Racing
Not to be outdone by virtual engineering, the latest racing car video games, or more correctly simulators, incorporate exceptionally realistic real-time virtual physics (kinematics and aerodynamics), 3D graphics and even 3D sound. Online racing simulators pit virtual drivers from around the globe in hot pursuit of virtual titles. With all these advances you'd think there's little more that can be done to improve virtual racing - but you'd be wrong. What if you could virtually drive, on a game console, in a Formula 1 (F1) race mimicking the actual live action in the race?

Virtual Engineering is Here
Another day, another personal concept vehicle announcement - this time the ICON A5 from ICON Aircraft. Notice a pattern here? We've seen a surge in personal concept vehicle announcements recently - remember personal air vehicles, flying cars, personal helicopters, personal jetpacks and even personal submarines? Is it a coincidence or are there underlying forces making such vehicles inevitable?

Personal Helicopter Available Now
The GEN H-4 is a device that fulfills the promise of a personal jetpack, although it's technically a helicopter. In fact the GEN H-4 is officially recognized as the world's smallest piloted helicopter and it's available for purchase now.

Bioinspired Engineering
Imagine 3.8 billion years of slow but steady research and development (otherwise known as evolution), covering everything we need to survive and thrive here on Earth, freely available for everyone. You just need to know where and (more importantly) how to look for it, because the evidence of this massive R+D effort is everywhere. The study and exploitation of naturally evolved solutions for engineering systems is variously known as bionics, biomimetics, biomimicry, biognosis, bionical creativity engineering, bioinspired engineering, and maybe others. While there’s no single agreed name, there is consensus on the fact that nature is a great source for engineering inspiration.